Custom milled rice: Chouhan warns defaulting millers of hefty penalties

Reviewing the procurement status with the additional collectors and the civil supplies officials, Chauhan wanted them all act on war-footing to collect the custom milled rice from last year's monsoon season latest by Jan 31

Hyderabad: Civil Supplies Commissioner D S Chauhan on Thursday warned that the custom milled rice due to the FCI would be collected with penalties from the millers for defaulting deliberately.

Reviewing the procurement status with the additional collectors and the civil supplies officials, he wanted them all act on war-footing to collect the custom milled rice (CMR) from last year’s monsoon season latest by January 31. Stating that the department was left with barely 13 days to realize the targeted collection, he wanted them to hand it over the rice thus collected to the FCI.

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It would not possible to default on what is due to FCI and give rice to Civil Supplies Corporation after the due date as it happened in the past, he said adding that the corporation has the required quantity of rice in reserve for meeting the needs of public distribution system. Rice due from the defaulting millers should be handed over to the FCI well in time.

Strict action would be taken against the defaulting millers failing to comply with the norm of custom milling, he said stating that 25 percent penalty will be collected from the millers who have defaulted in the past and no one would be spared in this matter.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy and Civil Supplies Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy also viewed all the issues involved in rice procurement seriously, he said. Tough the millers in the State were equipped with a capacity to mill over 71,000 metric tonnes of rice in a single shift and 1.40 lakh metric tonnes in two shifts,the milling was not done to their maximum capacity on any given day.

He wanted the quality of rice provided to the poor through public distribution system be improved further and directed the official not to compromise on the quality aspect.